Stop Chasing Perfection

by | Feb 25, 2020 | Podcast

Do you want to stop chasing perfection and finally find a healthy routine where you don’t have to constantly feel like you’re jumping “on and off the wagon”? Then you’re at the right place because episode 1 of Master Your Mind and Metabolism is all about ditching the all-or-nothing mindset and finally reaching your transformational goals!

And if this is your first time listening, hello there! My name is Kelly Dunlap and I’m a Mindset + Metabolism Coach, a certified Hormonal Fat Loss Coach, and creator of the Metabolism Reboot Academy. My purpose in life? Helping people break free from destructive habits and patterns so they can transform their body & their life!

So if you’re ready to learn about the behavioral loops that are keeping you trapped in the same destructive behaviors, and how you can break free and finally reach your goals, keep reading! Then be sure to listen to all of episode 1 of Master Your Mind and Metabolism on your fave streaming platform for even more juicy details!

How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Finally Reach Your Goals, Point #1: To make progress, you need to stop having an all-or-nothing mindset.

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your healthy diet has to be “perfect” in order for it to be worthwhile. So anytime you “screw up” you think, “Well, I might as well just start again on Monday.”

 

But here’s the thing: the goal here in your life is not to be perfect. The goal is to make the best possible decision that you can at that time. So let’s say you’re trying to lose weight and you have a cookie. You could think, “Oh I screwed up, I have to start over.”

 

But you DON’T! Instead, you can choose to keep moving forward. You can keep making positive choices. You recognize that you made the choice to eat a cookie, and own that decision and let go of the guilt. And then just move on!

 

At the end of the day, perfection doesn’t exist. So when you set that up as your goal, you’re setting yourself up to fail and to stay trapped in the all-or-nothing mindset.

 

How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Finally Reach Your Goals, Point #2: Be aware of the five steps of Emotional Change, so you can handle future challenges more effectively.

Now, I’m going to outline some of the five steps of Emotional Change. This is a super important concept to understand because being aware of these steps will make you more prepared for actually encountering them when they come up. So let’s break down these steps:

  1. Uninformed optimism. This first step is the excited feeling you get when you’re about to start a new program or a new diet and you think, “It’s going to work. I am not going to make any mistakes this time. I am going to be perfect.” 
  2. Informed pessimism. So now you’ve started the program and you’re doing it perfectly from Monday through Thursday. But you know what? The weekend’s coming and so you start doubting if all of this work is really worth it. So you just do whatever you want and say you’ll start again on Monday.
  3. Valley of Despair. This is the most uncomfortable area and because you want to avoid it, you keep going back to step one. Because step one’s not really where you want to be, but it feels better than here. How can you stop cycling between these three steps? You embrace what I call the “uncomfortable hallway” and decide you didn’t come this far to quit. You also focus on your “why” for this whole journey. Why are you making these changes? Why do you want to feel better? 
4. Informed Optimism. After you walk through that sucky hallway, you get here. This is when you realize what you’re doing is working. You realize what bad habits you had and what you’re capable of. This is the lightbulb moment when lives are seriously changed!

5.Success and Fulfillment. At this point, you get all the benefits of the changes and process you’ve gone through. And you can seriously just keep going up and up in terms of your level of success and fulfillment.

So in order to really reach the transformational goals I know you have, you NEED to go through all five of these steps. You need to push through that middle stage of discomfort and not allow yourself to just keep repeating those first steps out of fear.

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How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Finally Reach Your Goals, Point #3: Habit loops are likely also holding you back.

So you’re also likely stuck in the same behaviors because of habit loops and the way you have basically trained your brain to work. And you can start making changes right now if you recognize your habit loops, the triggers, the routine and the reward that you are after that cause you to act a certain way. 

 

What are some examples of “triggers”? A trigger could be a smell or a person. Even turning on Netflix could be your trigger because when you watch Netflix, you might grab your popcorn and chocolate or your glass of wine. You can even see your addiction to start over because it always feels really good at the start to be a habit loop. 

 

So if you’re constantly wondering why you can’t stay committed to something or why you keep acting a certain way, this is why.

 

How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Finally Reach Your Goals, Point #4: Routines are super powerful tools to control your habit loops and triggers.

Now routines, whether you believe this or not, are needed to live your life. You need to be in control of your day. Because when you plan out and structure your day, you can better predict what is going to happen in your day. Therefore, you can better control all of the habit loops and the triggers that we just talked about. 

 

Plus, a routine will help you to recognize these gaps that you keep getting stuck in. It can make you realize, “Oh, I need to tighten that loop up so that I don’t fall into this gap, which is ultimately going to trigger me into starting over.”

The Bottom Line of How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Finally Reach Your Goals

I know what it’s like to just keep saying to yourself: “I can’t stay committed. I don’t get it. I’m always falling off the wagon.” But the truth is, commitment is all about behavior. So when you recognize the behavioral and habit loops that you keep repeating, you can change and that commitment will come.

 

And to hear even more details about all four of the points outlined above, be sure to tune in to episode 1 of Master Your Mind and Metabolism. And if you love this episode as much as I do, don’t forget to take a screenshot, share it on your Insta stories and tag me at @kellyadunlap!

Meet your host:

For years, I was the Queen of what I call the “Start-Over Syndrome.” I was someone who was ALWAYS STARTING OVER because I  repeated the same vicious cycle of destructive patterns that kept me stuck and playing small in my life.

After many years of misery and continuously repeating the vicious cycle of destructive patterns, such as binge eating and drinking, I was finally able to break the cycle and take back control of my life.

I feel FREE and I want you to live your life feeling the same way too! xoxo